Crack On!

Hola amigos!

Estamos aqui en Temuco! I´m having some problems with
the keyboard so forgive any typos... there is a line
so now is not the time to be formal.

We´re all here, staying in the Hogar de Bautista - the
Baptist house for girls. There are communal showers
which we have divided up into boys and girls because
taking showers with strangers of the opposite gender
is just too much. It´s very cold and all the beds
have 4 wool blankets. I feel like I´m suffocating and
start having claustrophobic fits. Other people feel
like they´re in the womb - all about perspective,
really.

Anyway. Santiago is a big urban city. On halloween
they were having mayoral elections so most everthing
was closed. We found some place to have lunch and got
microbuses to the airport. Today in Temuco, and all
over Chile it is All Saint´´s Day - so once again
everything closed.

We did go to a Mapuche museum to see some pots and
then to a Mercado to buy scarves made of alpaca fur
and some musical instruments. I now have a drum and
horn I´m considering using for a wake up call.

We met some of the families tonight in a bienvenida
and were forced to speak Spanish for a long enough
time that my head hurt. The directors from the
Habitat board and some of the family members got up to
speak, so of course Una and I had to say something.
Connie our Habitat contact was translating the
conversation to English for us so I thought she would
translate our conversation to Spanish, but no. Since
I had been throwing my Spanish around, I got to
translate for Una. Lordy. It actually went okay and
I impressed some of the non Spanish speaking members
of the team.

The team is great. We did our orientation Saturday...
one of the games is where you throw a string around
when answering the question of what your greater
purpose for coming on this trip was. you hold on to
the string so it ends up looking like a big web once
everyone has gone and then we talk about this being
symbolic of us all being connected and we cut the
string up and give some to everyone asking them that
when they get frustrated over the next two weeks that
they look at their string and remember why they are
here and why other people are here and to chill out.
EVeryone is wearing their string around, on their
wrists, using it to hold their nametags, etc. It´s
cool.

For all our trying to get to know people before the
trip, they surprise you. We´ve got quite a few chatty
Cathys so we´´re trying to make sure everyone gets a
chance to speak up. Every day provides a new
challenge for Una and I team wise and logistic wise.
So far, they´ve mostly been personal challenges... but
some of them have the potential to go team wide.

Áh well... what would it be without a challenge and a
lesson to learn, eh¿

Tomorrow we finally get to work. It is currently
pissing down rain, says Dennis, and we will work
tomorrow, rain or shine. I´m a little sad to find out
the scotch guard didn´t take to my jacket too well and
I´m not really waterproof. Gives me something else to
look for at the mercado besides spice racks and pieces
of wood that say welcome to Temuco.

Okay, this has been far too long. The computer is at
the Hogar so I imagine I´ll get to write again.
Though this keyboard is so stiff I think I´ve just
developed carpal tunnel.

As they say here...

Chau,
Kristian